HAVANA — It seemingly has been a long time coming, but the application process for low-income homeowners in Havana to try to obtain one of two home improvement grants begins Tuesday.

Starting that day, residents living in the area between South Water Street and South 10th Street from West Tinkham to West Illinois Street will be able to apply for one of the seven or eight available Community Development Assistance Program grants that will provide up to $40,000 worth of repairs needed to bring a house up to code. All other residents in the city will be able to apply for one of the four available Illinois Housing Development Authority grants that will cap out at between $23,000 and $27,000.

Jeff Cozadd, the housing programs manager for the Western Illinois Regional Council, along with other regional council representatives, will be in Havana on Tuesday at the police/fire station taking applications. He said that as of Wednesday, six or seven people already had scheduled appointments to apply for the IHDA grants and about 10 people had applied for the CDAP grants. There were only a few available appointment times left for Tuesday, but that does not mean Cozadd will stop accepting applications.

“There is a limited number of houses we can do,” Cozadd said. “That shouldn’t discourage people from applying, though, because it’s not like it’s on a first-come, first-served basis.”

Grant recipients will be based on a scoring system that takes several things into account, Cozadd said. First off, the applicant has to qualify as low income, and after that, other criteria are taken into account. Points are awarded for things such as having lived in the house for so many years or having a disabled family member, Cozadd said.

The regional council staff will pick the applications that receive the most points and assess those homes, Cozadd said. He added the deadline to submit an application is pretty much when the last house has been assessed. That might not be until June, though, so there is time.

When going to fill out an application, according to Cozadd, homeowners need to bring income documentation, home ownership paperwork, property tax information and homeowner’s insurance information.

The Havana City Council first engaged the Western Illinois Regional Council for $5,000 in February 2013 to apply for the Community Development Assistance Program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Word came through in November that the city had been approved for $365,000 — enough to fund repairs to seven or eight houses.

In November it was also announced that the regional council was going to handle the city’s application for a grant from the Illinois Housing Development Authority that would extend eligibility to anybody in the city for home repair funds.